[Re] Going Beyond Racism (Part 1)

So this is a response to both Terrace H. and Courtney W. posts about UC Berkley's "Racist" bake sale as well as the discussion about racism that we had in class today.

As much as I love diversity, I believe that by forcing colleges to offer an equal chance in education to all races is promoting as much discrimination as they are trying to prevent.  At heart, the controversy over affirmative action plays into how we judge the justice of social policy.  The basic premise of social policy is that everyone should be treated with equality and receives equal opportunities unless there is a morally relevant reason why they should be treated differently.  By giving additional benefits or burdens to students based on ethnicity, not only are we judging races based on how well they do academically, but we're also denying equal education for students who work diligently regardless of their background.

 Here's an insightful quote from Terrace's own opinion on stereotypes as an African American:

Terrace: "Mainly because African Americans are constantly being looked down and with having such a negative light it is hard for us to break apart from all the stereo types and having people just respect us as a normal human being. With colleges accepting a black person just because they are black is giving African Americans a step back from respect but at the same time I feel that it in a way is sort of comforting."

I agree with Terrace that African Americans have often been portrayed negatively through the academic system. This is especially apparent in SAT because black students may qualify for admission into National Achievement Program and the National Merit® Program by taking the Preliminary SAT/National Merit Scholarship Qualifying Test.  Although this encourages academic success and support, it also singles out the black population as not meeting the academic quota.  This is incredibly frustrating because there are plenty of students who NEED education benefits such as scholarships to further their education.  However these students aren't given these opportunities because their ethnicity is stereotyped in such a way that they don't need educational support.

Coming from an Asian background, my race has often been stereotyped to have high academic success and achievements.  However, there are people who still harbor hateful feelings towards Asians because of their apparent ascendancy and increasing presence in Western media.  The model minority American news media promotes has given the impression that Asians are geniuses and score amazingly high on SAT.  UC Berkley has been rumored to provide an unfair admittance for Asians considering a majority of students who go there is Asian.  Students are discouraged to enroll in Berkley because they are afraid Asians have set the grading curve too high.   This stereotype has been over hyped in that the media doesn't include that many Asians have taken community college courses or specialized courses to get to the prestigious colleges they attend now.  It is from this gross estimation, that Asians students and especially those who don't meet the stereotype aren't offered as many opportunities.